Who Controls the Internet?

The idea that anyone is controlling the Internet runs contrary to common knowledge. The Web has a tradition of hosting free content with relatively little government or regulatory interference, and is today backed by a fervent army of supporters ready to defend a free and open platform. And in celebration of 20 years of a free World Wide Web, research laboratory CERN recently restored the world’s first website. April 30, 1993 was the day the Web’s source code became publicly available on a royalty-free basis, setting a precedent of free, open and transparent public participation and usage online. Many individuals and organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), maintain it is the free and open nature of the Web that has permitted the historically unrivaled technological growth seen today, while providing an outlet for the nation’s most cherished right of free speech. But the Internet is not completely free, nor is access uniform across the globe -- nor are things likely to stay exactly as they are today.